


Procedural Analysis

by sawnixere



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Blackmail, Blood, Body Modification, Dinosaur sex, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Manipulation, Masturbation, Mpreg, Oviposition, Voyeurism, dubcon, graphic birth, noncon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-01-02 20:55:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21167729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawnixere/pseuds/sawnixere
Summary: Josh needs his professors to recognize him as a good worker, one willing to do his job. So he takes on a task: care for an egg and nurture whatever comes out of it. But when what comes out of it is a raptor, Josh starts questioning what his professors actually want from him, which is, "Anything the raptor needs."





	1. Chapter 1

University was a scam. At least, that’s what Josh thought it was, after managing to get his degree in the Bio- and Organic Chemistry Labs at Kirkland State. He already felt like a fraud, a washed-up hack, and he had only just finished with school! Not that it was entirely his fault- the whole department, except for his now paid internship position, was being hogged by ancient, tenured professors that treated him more like a secretary than a partner.

Grudgingly, he brought them their coffee orders from the cafeteria’s cheap machine, or stayed after filing paperwork from their research materials, or scrubbed up their chemical spills with rubber gloves and dry compound while they went off and monitored the progress of their most recent studies. In fact, when they pawned even menial tasks off on him- measuring saliva distillations or crystallizations, or the results of a liquid electrolysis- he jumped on them, taking meticulous notes on the most minute detail. He just wanted them to  _ notice _ him, to realize that he could do good work if he was given the chance. He couldn’t screw this up, anyway. If he did, he’d no doubt be kicked out of the program without tenure and without another job to keep him afloat.

And really, being at school was about the only thing he could take pride in; his non-academic life was already in shambles what with his girlfriend dumping him for being gone nearly every day, with the added complaint that she needed more ‘spice’ in her sex life which, honestly, they barely had one to begin with. Josh didn’t have  _ time  _ for that, and apparently, after a year and four months, she didn’t have time for him either. He barely even saw her around anymore, and for some reason, he didn’t really mind.

It could also have been that Josh’s dorm room was a disaster of takeout containers, scattered clothes and piles of paper, left a wreck on the days when he worked, and staying a wreck on his days off because he was too tired to clean it up. Thankfully, he didn’t have any roommates to complain to him when everything was sort of vaguely stacked in areas so it made a sort of trail from the door to his desk and bed. He did at least know not to rely on anyone but himself to clean it up.

Not to mention that he’d also been out of contact with his parents for nearly six months. Or, he played phone tag with them, leaving messages answering the questions they asked when they called and he was busy, their five-minute voicemails giving him something to listen to other than the hushed conversations of his so-called colleagues mumbling over notes while he replaced trash can liners nearby.

A vacation was what he needed, probably, but it was only a month into the quarter and spring break was a distant thought. Besides, he was too far from his parents’ home on the coast to even manage the money for a flight back to visit, let alone getting together all his stuff, or even taking an in-town break over a weekend.

In short, he was poor and desperate.

He would do anything to be recognized. To be able to find work that he could take pride in, instead of being a certificated coffee server and janitor.

And then, his Anything decided to show up.

Josh was in the back end of the laboratory, finishing up emptying the garbages under the lab desks, when Dr. Norell, one of the professors with hair graying around the temples and a flat, severe look to his face, let the door shut behind him as he entered.

“Hello, sir,” Josh offered, sliding the edge of a folded garbage bag between his fingers to find the opening. “Haven’t you usually headed home by now?”

The professors’ offices were closed, the labs mostly devoid of any projects that needed a watchful eye, which left Josh to what he privately called his ‘retail closing’ duties. He wiped the counters, swept and mopped the floor, cleaned the sinks and emptied the garbages before finally heading back to his dorm room. It was unusual for the professors to stay in the on-site labs beyond the afternoon, and while the spring sun was still hovering above the tree line, it was effectively dusk.

“Usually,” Norell replied. He adjusted the sleeve of his lab coat, his other arm occupied with a large sheaf of papers stuffed into a manila folder. “But I thought I’d find help somewhere in here. Perhaps not you, Mr. DePalma.”

Josh hesitated, pausing and letting the crinkling of plastic die away. “Not me?” Why would Norell want help? Was it for something important? His breath caught. Was it because of the folder? Was it a  _ project _ ?

“I suppose I could use you. Then again,” Norell was saying lowly, leaning on the matte black counter that Josh had just cleaned and looking at the streaks of damp slowly evaporating from its surface. “It’s high-profile. I should probably reconsider my options. There’s a lot of work involved in-”

“What-” Josh started, overly loud and jumping on Norell’s words. He reigned himself in; Norell looked up at him over wire-rimmed glasses, and Josh began again. “What are the case details?”

Josh stared, unmoving, back straight and face schooled flat. He didn’t want to screw this up. He couldn’t screw this up. Norell stared back, and Josh counted the seconds in his mind.  _ One… two… three… f- _

Norell took the folder out from under his arm with a sigh and slapped it onto the counter. Josh jumped, but his eyes remained locked on the stack of papers marked with sticky notes and colored slip sheets. He could barely see the red outline of a stamp plastered to the front of the folder, under Norell’ hand.  _ Top Secret _ , he imagined it said.

“We’re looking for a… contributor. A handler.” Norell drew out the pause between words, like he was trying to come up with a good title. “The project up to this point has been a success. Our initial hypothesis is still in the air, but the pre-development went smoothly overall. There were some failures, of course- there always are- but we appear to have obtained a developmentally stable specimen.”

He paused, and Josh looked between him and the folder, opening his mouth and then closing it again. “So…”

“This means that we have a specimen that is capable of being handled,” Norell clarified. “But because of the nature of said specimen and its dependence on its handler, isolation is the largest hurdle we have so far encountered.

“Therefore, the experiment has halted until said handler can be acquired, and we’re having poor luck, despite the… perks.” Again, he drew out the pause as if he was searching for the correct term. Josh’s eyes darted from him to the folder and back.

“Perks?”

Norell nodded. “Since isolation is required, we have built a domicile for the specimen and its handler, on campus but secluded. The property is secured and fenced, completely furnished, and we have taken all precautions- grocery delivery can be arranged, and all monitoring equipment has been installed. Pay is of course included, however, we have had no volunteers, most likely in part due to the intricacy of it all.” He patted the folder, then raised his hand and ran it through his hair with a sigh. “We were on the verge of something extraordinary. But with limitations like that… we may not-”

“Sir,” Josh interrupted, tugging at his own sleeve behind his back. “If you’re looking for volunteers, then I could-”

“No, certainly not. It’s a complex matter.” Norell waved him away, but by that point, Josh was determined.

“But sir, I’m already part of the program. None of the other professors have ever complained about my work, have they? I doubt anyone else you’d find to volunteer would have good enough credentials, and… and whatever conditions are laid out- I’ll do it.”

He hoped his voice was firm enough. Norell looked like he’d been told he stepped in something unfortunate, his fingers tapping on the desk contemplatively.

“I don’t think the board would accept-”

“ _ Please _ ,” Josh interjected, hanging onto the edge of the counter, the trash bag that he’d had in one hand fluttering to the floor. “I’ll do it. I’ll sign an NDA if you need me to, but I’ll do it, I swear.”

Norell stayed quiet. Josh watched his face, the line around his mouth and eyes twitching between hesitation, contemplation, and then slowly flattening into resignation. That same expression melted into a self-satisfied smile, and Josh smiled hopefully in return. Norell was surely excited that  _ he _ was the one that could tell the board he’d solved their problem, with the help of their willing intern. And maybe this time, Josh could show them how well he could handle things on his own.

Norell opened the folder, flipping through a couple pages that looked like signed letters. He produced a thin packet of a few double-sided pages stapled together, dense with text and minimalistic graphs.

“You’ll need to read this,” he said, offering the packet, which Josh took.

_ DR Steini: Specimen Development and Reintroduction via Human Bonding _ , the title read, in plain black font.

“Who’s Doctor Steini?” Josh asked aloud, and then realized that sounded stupid. Probably one of the board members he’d never met. “Never mind, um. I’ll- yeah, I’ll read this.”

“Come to Ostrom Hall once you have. Tomorrow afternoon in room 2015, myself and Professor Clark will be able to give you more details.” Norell went quiet after that, his face thin and stern as he watched Josh.

Josh held the small packet in both hands, trying not to shake with anticipation. “I- right. Room 2015. I can do that.”

This was his chance. He could do  _ anything _ .

***

Josh hesitated outside the door of room 2015. He could hear the voices of the two professors inside, talking at each other, but muffled so he couldn’t make out the words. One of them talked over the other and the second responded in kind.

He turned the doorknob and their voices ceased. Unsure of himself, but too deep to back out now, he peeked into the room; it was empty except for the two men, Clark sitting on a stool and leaned on one of the matte black counters, while Norell stood as if he’d been gesturing a moment earlier. Three manila folders sat in a haphazard stack between them, one open with papers drawn out and a pen nearby.

“Didn’t lose your nerve,” Norell said, looking him up and down.

Josh slipped through and let the door close behind himself, offering the packet he’d gone over the night before to Norell, who took it and flipped its pages. “No, sir, it, uh… it actually sounds pretty simple. Basically taking care of a big dog, right?”

“Hah!” Clark barked. “A dog, yeah, right on the nose. Look, if you’re that set on it, we’re needing some signatures.” He picked up the pen and started leafing through the folders of paper, picking out packets and individual sheets.

Norell nodded along with the motion. “It’s required that you do sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, according to the investors of the project. You’ll also need to sign a waiver and contract, and initial the lease for the property we’ve set up so that it’s known you’ve agreed to live there as a tenant.”

As Norell spoke, Clark lined up the packets of paper on the counter and stacked the remains of the folders to one side, holding out the pen for Josh to take. “You’ve already been registered for direct deposit of funds through the internship, so the payment for this project will be added to that. We’re also providing you a list of approved contacts while you’re under contract. Contacting anyone outside of that list will result in a breach of the Non-Disclosure, which will effectively break your contract. Breaking the contract will result in a loss of all benefits outlined within, as well as your termination.”

“Um… right, okay.” Josh stepped up to the counter and flipped through the first packet- it was a renter’s agreement that seemed to have been put together for them to give to him. It outlined a few minimal rules and specifications of the small house; one bedroom, a fenced yard, utilities covered by the agreement. His name was already written in as the renter, the university mentioned in the payment process and leaving nothing for him cost-wise. He filled in the blanks with his messy signature and initials, and went on to the next form.

The rest of them were similar in format, outlining the responsibilities of the university to Josh, and Josh’s responsibility to the specimen. He signed and initialed where needed, a few missed lines pointed out by Clark. The largest packet, however, was the one that was clearly put together by the professors themselves. It was a multi-part document outlining the initial testing phase, most of the work securing funding, and a volley of other information relating to the specimen. Josh flipped through it, but Clark simply tugged the first page from it and set aside the rest.

“You’ll be able to take that with you. For now, we just need these.” He tapped the paper, which had a few lines next to bullet points. Josh glanced at them.

_ I will honor the Non-Disclosure Agreement, Housing Agreement, and Contract based on my signature. _

_ I will document any and all happenings while acting as caretaker, in as clear detail as possible. _

_ I will provide the specimen with any and all care it needs, to the best of my ability.   
_

_ I certify that all information herein is correct, to my knowledge. _

It felt like a standard contract. Josh once again smudged his messy signature on the line, only printing his name slightly neater next to it.

Clark stacked the signed paperwork together and handed it off to Norell, who offered a handshake which Josh took.

"I'll get these filed appropriately," Norell said.

Clark nodded, patting Josh's back once and gesturing for him to follow. “I’ll take you to your new living space. The specimen will be brought tomorrow evening, and we’ll also contract a mover to collect your personals from your old dorm.”

Josh followed without bothering to say there wasn’t much to move but what amounted to trash, for the most part. Clark walked him back down the hall and outside, crossing a small patch of grass toward the staff parking lot. A shiny silver car blipped as its alarm disabled, and Clark climbed in. “It’s quicker by car, across campus,” he clarified, and Josh slid into the passenger’s seat.

The road from the parking lot curved around the edge of the campus, encircling long, old buildings that had been a part of the facility for decades, their brick facades and marble paneling well-aged. Josh watched them pass as he settled into his seat, watched them become distant as they crossed into maintenance property, the hum of generators and machinery underscoring the silent running of Clark’s electric car.

Another quarter mile off, edged by a stand of trees and low shrubbery that half-masked it from view, a solid fence enclosed a squat, small house. Clark pulled alongside and turned off the car, pulling his rotund self from behind the steering wheel.

“Here you are,” he said, gesturing grandly at the property. “There’s a key to the place inside, but I have a spare. Come on.”

He trudged over the lumpy grass, pausing at the gate to dig out his wallet and scan his staff identification at a small, featureless box, whose red LED turned green. “You’ll be able to do the same with your ID,” he continued, pushing open the hefty gate.

Josh followed quickly, noting that the gate seemed  _ heavy _ , and that the edges of the fence surrounding it were coated in metal bands that created a seal around the surprisingly thick wood. As the gate shut behind them, it didn’t make the sound Josh thought it should make- a squeak of hinges and rattle as the wood shook with force- it sounded more like a piece of concrete scraping into place and the smooth click of an automatic lock.

Clark crossed the large yard and unlocked the house’s front door. Everything about the place looked plain- it was whitewashed, with curtained windows and a simple facing, and inside was much the same. Off-white carpet and linoleum, taupe walls and basic furniture made it feel like a showroom rather than a place someone would live, but… it was pretty much the nicest place Josh had lived on his own, and he mentally promised he’d try and keep up with it as much as he could.

“This is it,” Clark was saying. “The rest of your things should be coming tomorrow, and the specimen will be dropped in early evening. There are copies of the paperwork in the bedroom, and the refrigerator has a few things in it; grocery delivery will happen at the end of the week.”

He turned a circle, seeming to pronounce everything in order, then turned his bespectacled gaze on Josh. “Any questions?”

Josh opened his mouth, then closed it and simply shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’d know what  _ to _ ask. I guess I have some research to do, huh?”

Clark barked a short laugh. “Sure do. It’s all yours!”

And without another glance, he turned away and left, shutting the door behind himself.

With nothing left to do but a job that hadn’t even started yet, Josh watched out the window as Clark unlocked the gate and pushed through. He laughed to himself as the big door swung shut. This  _ was _ it, what he’d wanted from them all along, and more!

***

Josh adjusted well, and quickly. He had to, first of all, but second, he’d never been particularly attached to spaces. And the movers had been good with their selectiveness, so all Josh had to deal with unloading was his computer workstation, clothes, a couple knick knacks, and his books, which were the heaviest and most awkward to put away.

The house still didn’t look like anyone lived there, aside from his one dirty dish in the sink, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was the second visit he got that day, while he was in the middle of deciding which drawers to put what clothing in.

Norell was accompanied by another man, taller than him but with more jolly, found features. The man carried a wooden box huddled close to his chest, a few bits of paper stapled to it and a denotation stenciled on one corner.

“This is Doctor Paul Varricchio,” Norell offered in introduction.

Varricchio nodded. “You must be Mr. DePalma. I hear you’re going to take excellent care of our specimen here.”

Josh, who was subtly examining the box, flicked his gaze up. “Oh. Yeah. That’s me, I will.”

“Good.” Varricchio adjusted the box, stepping around Josh so he could squat and place it on the floor. “We only have the one specimen, and this is a long time in coming. I’m sure you understand the implications if anything were to go wrong. Our investors are extremely excited to see the results of the last six years.”

_ Six years? _ No wonder everything was so… so monitored. Josh had already figured out there were at least three cameras in the house, and probably more outside, though he hadn’t bothered to commit to a deep scour. He knew he was going to be under observation. He had to be, if they were going to witness everything that was going to happen, and if they didn’t want to go by his notes alone.

“I… yeah. I understand. I spent a bit more time last night rereading the research paper and initial reports. Should… it be in a closed container like that?”

The box was wooden, slats nailed together, and the whole thing looked more like a shipping device than something to transport a live thing. Varricchio glanced down, then back up. “This? Nah, it’s fine.”

He got his fingernails under the edge of the lid, tugging at it, and it slid open to reveal…

An egg.

Or at least, it looked a little like an egg. It was off-white and speckled, a sort of fat, oblong shape. But it was big, bigger than any egg Josh had seen in real life, more like a waifish ostrich egg than something from a chicken. It was nestled in a tray full of sand, and Varricchio didn’t go so far as to take it out, just turned the crate so Josh could see.

“If our calculations are correct, it should hatch in the next couple of weeks. We’ve already determined its viability, so the steps afterward are yours once it does.”

He stood up, offering a hand, which Josh took. Varricchio shook it heftily, twice. “Good man. Now. I think that was everything. Norell, you’ve secured the documents?”

“Everything is in order, up to and including security checks,” Norell confirmed, nodding.

“Great!” One last clap on the back nearly knocked Josh over. Varricchio let him go after that, and Norell gave only a glance and a shrug before following silently after.

And then Josh was left alone with a crate in the middle of the- his?- living room floor, and an egg nestled gently in the sand. It seemed… ominous, almost, in the way that untapped potential is ominous, or in the way that the unknown felt like a tingle on the back of Josh's neck. He scratched his hairline, then down under his chin, and filled the long silence with a sigh.

"Well," he said to the egg, for lack of anyone to talk to. He didn't usually do more than mumble to himself but now he was taking care of something. It was like talking to a cat or dog, he figured. "I guess… we get you into the incubator."

He was glad they'd provided an incubator, actually. The machine looked a bit primitive compared to the research that had already been done, and the machinery that Josh was used to, but it worked just as well as anything else. It looked like someone had overturned a huge mixing bowl on top of a cake rack and encased the whole thing in plastic, but the thick wires running from the center pillar of the thing to the outside slowly spun when it was turned on. It allowed even heating on all sides of the egg without much room for error, which the program demanded and Josh needed to fulfill. He carefully took the machine halfway apart, just enough to lay the egg inside, then closed it back up.

Its small engine hummed when he turned it on, the minute movement of the thick wires gently pushing the egg along on its slightly longer side. Josh watched it for several minutes, in which time it moved maybe millimeters. That was… that was what it was supposed to do. Just slowly ease the egg along until the creature inside decided it wanted to be  _ outside _ .

For now, all Josh had to do was wait.

He spent the next several days getting used to his new home. The movers came by, as promised, to drop off his things, and after they had, he felt a little guilty. There wasn't much to his possessions- his books and clothes, and a few other things here and there- which made him realize how slobbish he'd been while in the dorm and how much of the space was taken up with clutter and literal garbage. The house, of course, looked pristine in comparison, despite the small pile of boxes that had accumulated after they'd moved him in.

His life in those days was composed of boredom, mostly. He did slowly find places to put his things, filling shelves and stocking drawers, but beyond that and checking on the egg every several hours, he spent quite a lot of time rereading the packets they'd given him, as well as playing video games and surfing online, scrolling through endless loops of youtube, reddit and the like.

And his daily notes weren't that exciting, either.  _ Day seven. Egg's still rolling around in the incubator. No movement, temperature normal. _

Josh didn't even have to leave the property. He got delivery groceries at the front gate, and a paycheck dropped into his account every two weeks just like always, though there was a marked increase in the amount. The only caveat was that he hand over his notes for the two weeks before the date of payment, which he managed easily with the clockwork visits of Varricchio. He could afford, after the money was deposited, to order a decent variety of delivery food, once again dropped at his gate. It was like heaven.

Really boring heaven.

That was, until the egg cracked.

He wasn't sure exactly when it happened. Sometime between six and ten at night, since ten was the last he usually checked on the egg and made his  _ no change _ notes. It had been nearly a month since he'd received the specimen from Varricchio, and he was wondering if it was even viable as the paperwork said it was. The incubator had continued its slow roll, and the egg gave a small lurch as the wire tilted it into a new position. The hairline fracture was barely visible, but after weeks of examining the pristinely speckled, off white shell, it was hard for Josh to miss.

He fumbled his pen, scratching out his first note and beginning on a new line.

_ 10 pm. Specimen has developed a small hairline fracture, approximately three inches long. Its movement within the incubator is somewhat erratic, indicating a heaviness that the incubator fights against as it moves. The incubator mechanism will be stopped, while the heat will continue to be applied. _

_ 11 pm. The specimen has shifted on its own. The crack has remained the same length, but has splintered. _

_ 11:15 pm. Shell has cracked enough to see inside. It looks like a foot has pushed at the edges and  _ <strike> _ there’s teeth?? _ </strike>

_ 11:45 pm. I thought it was a bird it's not a bird it's a fucking dinosaur. _


	2. Chapter 2

_ Dakotaraptor steini.  _ Binomial, proper name for one of the species of dromaeosaurid theropods that ran around during the late Cretaceous period. Josh felt kind of stupid, looking back on it. The egg wasn’t bird-shaped, really, it was too oblong and thin for that, not to mention it wasn’t quite ostrich-size but too big to be anything else.

Oh, and the document was  _ labeled _ with the name of the damn thing. The thing that had now broken free of its egg and was laying in its incubator, its limbs splayed and skin pocked with the beginnings of tiny feathers. It was only about eight inches tall, but its head was large in proportion to its body, and its tail stuck straight out. Josh couldn’t help but notice its three-toed feet and the one elongated claw on its innermost digit, small but already looking sharp.

It took him several long moments to catch his breath and reorient his thinking. Okay, so a… a dinosaur, one that he hadn’t even bothered to look up. Cursing his stupidity, Josh once again recalled himself looking at the report title and brushing off the raptor’s species as the name of a professor, and scrubbed his hands through his dark hair. Jesus. Okay, it was fine. Everything was fine. It wasn’t as if this thing was an unknown species- everyone knew what raptors were. There were at least half a dozen types that stuck in his mind, and he was sure he could google more.

What he needed to know at the moment was what it ate, and the answer was simple: meat. He just needed to make sure it didn’t equate him with food.

He scrambled to the fridge, whipping the door open with a rattle of condiment bottles, and reached for the closest thing he had- a tupperware of leftover hamburger from his lazy night of half-full burritos. He let the fridge door shut on its own and turned to go back to the raptor, but hesitated. After a moment’s thought, he opened his silverware drawer and took a serving spoon before heading back to the little dinosaur’s side.

“Uh…” he said as he crouched, getting to his knees. “Hey there.”

The dinosaur- was it a chick, like a baby bird? That’s what he’d call it for now, he supposed- peeped, its sides throbbing with quick breaths and its body still slightly damp. Its unsteadiness didn’t stop it from trying to get up and walk despite the awkwardness of two legs and a big body to go with them. It stumbled, falling onto its chest and lashing its tail, chirping indignantly.

“Chill, buddy, you’re not even  _ dry _ yet.”

Oh, god, speaking of, Josh had completely forgotten his notes. He rushed to retrieve his paper pad, scribbling the time and his general observations:  _ chick seems healthy, tried to walk, vocal cords intact, appears similar to popular culture-known dinosaur type _ .

He kept the notebook close by and opened the tupperware, spooning out a smattering of tiny ground beef pieces and clumping them together on the floor several inches in front of the raptor’s nose. It tried to stand again, using its smaller forelimbs to balance with its tail stuck straight out, and managed for a few seconds before it tried to take a step. The foot placement failed it, and it tumbled forward again, squawking its displeasure.

That did not, however, stop it from wiggling its way to the meat, which it gave a perfunctory sniff before scraping at the pieces with its tiny, needle-like teeth.

It adjusted, squatting and looking almost like a kangaroo, balancing with its forelimbs while it munched on the spongy food. Josh watched it, still shocked and impressed enough that his mouth hung open and he sat- looking, in turn, much like the raptor- once again having forgotten his notes.

The chick took it rather quickly; in a few mouthfuls, the meat was gone, and it stretched its neck, looking for more, which Josh quickly provided. And in turn, the raptor did away with it as quickly, its coordination already improving. Josh repeated the feeding twice more before closing the lid on the container, unsure as to whether he could overfeed the chick and not willing to find out.

By then, it had begun to stumble and wobble around in circles around the little pile of meat that Josh put down, its steps quiet on the carpeted floor and its forelimbs held tight to its body. Its fluffy body had finally mostly dried, only the bits on its chest still slightly damp. It looked up at Josh, tilting its head, and sneezed, nearly falling over. But this time, it kept its balance, and stood a little higher, chirping again.

Josh tilted his head in return. The little chick’s feathers seemed like a cat’s fur, reflecting the patterning underneath. Overall, it was a sort of muddy brownish-green, stripes of darker brown on its back and legs. The most striking feature was the rust-red blaze on its muzzle, a few vague rusty marks also on its shoulders like pauldrons, and its tail tip. It reminded Josh of the jasper stone bracelet his mother had; nothing entirely fancy, but a keepsake from a trip she’d taken to the midwest once to visit family.

He reached out with two fingers to touch the little muzzle, and the chick stood tall, peering at him. It opened its mouth, and he hesitated, but then it flailed at him with its forelimbs and he reached again. It leaned into his touch, chirping, and clambered closer, which halted Josh in his tracks. “Uh,” he said, as it scrambled up onto his calf and then knee, and sat contentedly there, looking pleased with itself.

“Okay… so I guess… Jasper can be a boy or girl name, right? You good with that?” Not that he expected an answer, but the chick- Jasper, now- didn’t seem to mind one bit.

What it did mind was Josh moving, his leg going tingly from sitting for so long. He shifted, and Jasper’s talons dug in, not sharp enough to penetrate Josh’s jeans but enough to leave marks where they dragged. “C’mon, I gotta get up,” Josh complained, picking Jasper up under its belly and lifting it, with protesting squeaks, to the floor.

He stood, shaking the tingles out of his leg before heading back to the kitchen to put the tupperware away. Jasper peeped and followed, nearly tripping Josh as it hopped over one of his feet and caught him off guard.

"Come on, you can't still be hungry. That was a lot of food for such a tiny guy," Josh scolded. Jasper, meanwhile, simply stared up at him, its hands held at its chest and its body seeming much more balanced now that it was dry.

Josh paused, then took a couple steps. Jasper followed in a little self-important trot. Josh stopped, and the raptor did too. He strode forward quickly, and Jasper leaped after, scrabbling to keep up.

"Oh," Josh said. "That… makes sense. I guess I was the one you saw first. And the one that fed you."

It must have imprinted on him, like a baby duck in a youtube video. He bet that if he went outside, Jasper would follow; no wonder they had fences, now that Josh had examined them closer and realized they were reinforced with rebar, for dealing with something like this.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped the lab had over-prepared.

Beyond that, the reality of the creature in his care had only half-settled itself into his mind. It acted more like a chicken or a feathered puppy than he could honestly expect out of something derived from an ancient predator. Its eyes felt  _ intelligent _ in a way he thought should scare him, like it was calculating a time to strike.

But all it did, when he finally allowed himself to sit on the couch, was stand at his feet and watch him, then take a great leap- a huge jump for its small body- and nearly made it, but thunked its chest against the cushions and fell back with an irritated squawk.

"How big do you suppose you'll be?" Josh asked it idly as he leaned to pick it up and set it on the couch next to him. Jasper churred and settled in, sitting braced against his leg. "Can't be  _ too _ big, huh?"

***

_ Day 9 _

_ D. Steini is mostly self-sufficient. I'm sure it would be able to fend for itself on mice and things if it was out in the forest. As of now, it acts similar to a cat: it plays with things left on the floor, practicing pouncing and chewing on most items if I'm careless enough to leave them at bite-height. It has a distinct interest in insects if they manage to get inside, and whines at them if they’re too high on the wall to play with. _

_ The doctors have asked that I tone down the paper-style notes into a journal. I’m not used to writing subjectively, as evidenced, so I’m sure they’ll forgive the shift in language as I practice. I didn’t particularly keep self-directed diaries as a child, and my note-taking has always been too precise. But they had requested that my writing come from a more personal viewpoint, so I’ll try and keep to that idea. _

_ D. Steini- I’ve started calling him Jasper, after his sex was confirmed through a visit from Dr. Clark- so, I suppose, Jasper, has been adapting well. His initial phase of understanding the barest necessity of standing, walking and eating has shifted to a more graceful experience, at least from what I would consider a toddler’s perspective. His development is similar to an ungulate in the field despite being a predator, immediate and heightened. Considering that while predators at the time, raptors were among the smaller of carnivores, the behavior makes sense. His coloration lends itself to camouflage most, however he does appear to show traits for what may be either sexual selection or perhaps mimicry or even temperature regulation. _

_ Interestingly, he also exhibits behavior that indicates either a natural affinity for pack-centered activity or a remnant of the human influence on his genome. Jasper does not stray far from me at any time. He keeps me in sight as a functional 'adult' in relation to him and while he is, again, mostly self-sufficient and could probably survive on his own, said behavior is akin to that of an animal that lives and is raised in a family group. _

_ Most notably this comes in the form of sleeping arrangements. He follows me to bed and lays at my back, and whines if he is kept outside- not simply for warmth as he seems fairly endothermic, although the professors figure he may also fall into a meso-endothermic category but have yet to test it. He seems comforted by it, which is a fair consideration as I don't think he's able to understand that the enclosure and house lacks predators. _

_ I think I’ve begun rambling a bit. See there, I went back into observation. I’ll leave this here for now to let Jasper out in the yard and feed him. _   
  


_ Day 23 _

_ Jasper is like a combination of a toddler, cat and dog all mashed into one. He's fully self-reliant already, though he’s not much bigger than a chicken. The only things he needs from me, as far as I can tell, are to let him outside and occasionally give him attention and food, since we're walled into the lot. I have no doubt he'd be going after mice and birds beyond what he already tries to catch, and I'm glad he's at least more like a toddler than a cat in that way because he doesn't play with them or bring them inside and let them loose. _

_ He even caught a bat once when I let him out at sunset. I don't know  _ how _ , all I know is that he came back inside with half a wing sticking from his mouth before he finished it off. The funny thing was that when I scolded him, he seemed to take it to heart, like he understood even better than a dog. I bet it means I could train him pretty easily; he already understands his name, I think. With this information and if I can get more in-depth reading on the procedures laid out to create Jasper, I may be able to determine what will happen once he reaches maturity. _

_ Day 78 _

_ It’s interesting to watch Jasper grow. It seems like he grows quickly and slowly all at once, since I can remember watching over his unmoving egg and yet it’s only been just over two months and he’s already big enough that he reaches my knee when he’s standing. _

_ The professors have given me a bit more information on their processes. It appears that Jasper has been modified beyond the genome of a dakotaraptor. For one, he was born with feathers- they weren’t expecting him to be and judge that he will eventually shed them, as they were intending on a more popular depiction of a raptor than a scientifically accurate, feathered version. I haven’t decided which I like better. I suppose I should agree with them, as popularity always brings more data and funding, however I feel as if the creation of an unfaithful raptor is… misleading. _

_ I guess it doesn’t matter, though. Jasper already exists, and there’s no changing him now. He’s cute anyway, with all that fluff. It also explains why he hasn’t grown any primaries, since they’d just fall out anyway. _

_ As a side note on his growth- it turns out he’s going to take a while. Not as long as a human- we generally reach maturity in our twenties- and not as short as a bird, say. It’s estimated he’ll take a little over a year, maybe two, to become fully mature. I didn’t realize I’d be in this for the long haul like that, but hey, it’s not exactly a miserable life. _   
  


_ Day 156 _

_ Most of my time outside of watching over Jasper has been spent in doing research. Unfortunately for me, aside from carbon dating and hypotheses about the few unearthed skeletons that have been found, my overall information is… lacking. Not only that, but it's clear that not much will help anyway- the professors' project has been crafted by humans and so the aesthetics and behaviors will not match exactly, and in some cases, may completely falsify each other. _

_ I resorted to watching hypotheticals like  _ Walking With Dinosaurs _ . They're not entirely helpful either, based on their drive for entertainment versus loose facts and lack of research. Then again, Jasper seems to like it well enough. _

_ He- _ _ Jasper is mimicking the raptors on screen. They are definitely not dakotaraptors but his vocalizations are close, if higher as he's still not grown.  _ _ I don't _

_ Wow. I suppose I should have expected. Skull shape does determine vocal capability for a variety of reasons but, well we have only really guessed at skull shape of dakotaraptor since the holotype is not complete. I guess it makes sense to base off not only that but other dromaeosaurid theropods. _

_ Somehow it's amazing but… it's sad to watch Jasper talk as if they're listening. _

_ Day 212 _

_ I had to put a trolley wire up to leash Jasper to. He’s gotten big enough and his legs are strong enough that he can nearly reach the edge of the wall if he jumps too high. Thankfully, with the poles buried deep and in cement, and the wires being pretty hefty, they’ve kept him solidly out of trouble. Now I know why the walls were so thick. They must have put rebar or something inside. Jasper at least doesn’t fight the leash, since I’ve had him in harness whenever we go outside. Even though he’s almost as big as I am, and definitely heavier, he doesn’t pull me around like I assumed he would. _

_ I think he even understands he has to stay inside the walls, but he puts up with the leash anyway. He’s a good boy. _

_ Day 396 _

_ It looks like cottonwoods have been blooming everywhere in the house and yard. That is, if cottonwoods had brown feathers instead of seeds. It’s a good thing I’m not allergic to anything or I’d have died already from the amount of shedding. Jasper looks like he’s having a time of it, too. He’s always itchy to the point that I have to scrub at him and keep him mostly damp or he tries to claw his skin off. _

_ He might be irritated at that, but he never takes it out on me. I think he knows I’m just trying to help. All those claws would be damn scary if he wasn’t basically a giant lapdog, but he barely uses his arms for anything other than holding food and toys. If he was able to sheathe them, I bet he would. His big old foot claw is still real sharp- there’s not much I can do about it- but he doesn’t ever seem to flex it, even when he’s playing. I was kind of worried for a while what he’d do once he was bigger, but I can see when he looks at me that he’d never try and hurt me. _

_ I think he thinks I belong to him as much as he belongs to me. Speaking of the feathers, though, he needs another bath. _   
  


_ Day 438 _

_ Jasper is growing, but there's not much to report other than that. He gets bored easily, and has figured out most of the toys I can give him, but I rigged a pulley system to make tug-of-war easier for me to play. Thankfully, there’s a lot that can be done indoors, since it’s been raining a lot recently and Jasper doesn’t like being out in it if he can help it. _

_ We spend time watching TV. He seems to like documentary programs, maybe because of the animals they show. Occasionally, we’ll get dinosaur shows on the History channel, or on Animal Planet, and he growls at me if I turn it off, so that’s been my life during rainstorms. _

_ His feathers are nearly gone now, and he stands at just a few inches shorter than me. I'm going to let him run around off-leash tonight to tire him out. He understands not to jump at the fence anymore. _   
  


_ Day 475 _

_ He scared the hell out of me today because I didn’t know he could open doors. I guess it makes sense because none of them are round doorknobs, but I thought there was a burglar or something! He actually had the nerve to look pleased with himself when he freaked me out. Damn dinosaur is gonna kill me one of these days and it isn’t going to be with his claws. _

_ Maybe he’s doing it because he’s bored? Predators need a lot of stimulation, and he’s sort of in a one-raptor zoo. The dog toys I can get aren’t exactly made for his kind of claws, and I guess he does like the laser pointer I have, but beyond that, there’s not much I can do. _

_ Requesting a drop of live animals just seems… mean for some reason, but I suppose I could ask for a shipment of a couple lab rats every so often to see if that helps. With all his feathers gone, he’s probably pretty close to reaching full maturity, and I don’t really know what comes after that. I was only wanted for the initial raising, I think, but Jasper has always sort of been like a kid. I don’t really know what he’ll do if he’s put into a different situation. Whenever a delivery comes- and he knows by now that they’re not dangerous or anything- he still keeps in front of me as much as he can. He watches like a police dog watches, and stays nearby, which I’m okay with, but if that changes? _

_ I guess we’ll have to do some more tests. Maybe I can teach him more commands than what he already knows in the meantime. _   
  


_ Day 539 _

_ Professor Clark has confirmed that Jasper has entered adulthood, as far as he can tell. _

_ I was surprised to find out that they want me to remain on as a handler for Jasper- his imprinting on me might go by the wayside eventually, but for now, he’s loyal and should stay that way. It’s funny to imagine a raptor that’s almost as tall as I am and probably twice as long- not to mention way heavier, goddamn- sitting when I tell him to. Professor Clark actually laughed when I did and Jasper just hunched down in that weird way he does, with his tail sticking straight out. _

_ But I’m also pretty glad they want to keep me on. Maybe they’ll have other projects for me in the future now that I’ve done this one. Hopefully they think I did a good job. _

_ Day ████ 617 _

_ I ███████████████████████████ Jasper is fine Everything is FINE _

***

Normal. It had been a normal day, which was saying something when Josh lived in isolation with a full-size dakotaraptor named Jasper. But by that point, just under two years since Josh had taken on the project, routines had developed.

Josh had learned to lock his bedroom door, since Jasper had figured out how to open both sliding doors and lever handles with careful application of his clawed hands. It had gotten pretty irritating rather quickly, Jasper acting not unlike a large and grumpy cat in the early morning when he wanted his food. He'd taken to leaping onto the bed to startle Josh awake, which also left the bedsheets and blankets pockmarked with claw holes and rips as Josh fought blearily awake to stare at the raptor's huge, eager face.

Reprimanding him didn't do much, so Josh had begun locking the door. Waking up to the sound of claws on the wooden paneling was at least somewhat less hectic, and gave him time to get up without being forcefully shoved out of bed in a mess of talons and scales.

After breakfast, Josh hooked Jasper's harness around him much like a toddler's leash backpack, except instead of a fabric monkey tail, it was heavy duty, insulated, 500-pound test wire which hooked to the trolley cable in the yard and kept Jasper from jumping over the ten-foot walls.

Beyond that, the days were lazy. Josh went through their supplies once a week and ordered more of what had dwindled- meat and offal was high on the list a good deal of the time now that Jasper was at his full adult weight. Streaming radio or television played near-constantly, keeping the mostly quiet house otherwise alive, and Josh used it as background static when he wrote his almost daily journals. It had been a difficult transition to alter his note-taking from a less personal, dull approach to something like a diary. He'd never been very personal with anything- his ex girlfriend could attest to that, he thought grimly- and so it had taken several weeks for him to stop observing and get a grasp on storytelling.

Usually, he started his journal once he brought Jasper back in for the night, the raptor left mostly to his own devices as Josh wrote. By the time he'd scraped together something more than 'Let Jasper out on his leash and then watched Planet Earth on Netflix,' it had gotten dark, and dark it was now as Josh set aside his notebook.

The night was cool, early spring still holding onto the frost of winter after the sun slipped away. Josh mused idly to himself about perhaps setting up more of a workstation in one of the other rooms rather than just a desk in his bedroom. He could probably begin working on other, more lengthy projects now that Jasper didn't need his full attention all the time, though he had already figured on needing locks everywhere, else Jasper decide he wanted to 'help.'

Josh took his ponderings with him as he headed to the bathroom, shucking his clothes and letting the water run for a few moments before stepping into the tub. He wondered, as he idly turned to soak himself, if the professors were thinking of giving him another egg. He'd done well raising the first, hadn't he? And despite his need to be Jasper's caretaker, maybe the raptor would get along with another of its kind. Maybe Josh could herd dinosaurs like some new-age cowboy. On the other hand, he just had to imagine another baby Jasper. Another little dinosaur with big teeth and a bigger attitude, who didn't care where its claws went but did very much care whenever a bird flew over the yard. He'd had to buy new pillows nearly every week when Jasper had been younger because his toe claws kept shredding the damn things when he jumped up on the couch or into Josh's bed.

Still, it might be nice for Jasper to have something else to keep his interest other than Josh. He must be bored most days, with nothing to do other than wander around and destroy rubber, industrial strength dog toys. Josh did try to keep him entertained, but short of teaching Jasper how to read, he didn't have much to go on other than videos of big cats in zoos playing with pumpkins and ropes. And even then, Jasper seemed… smarter than that. Josh felt, sometimes, that Jasper was  _ eerily _ smart, like opening closed doors wasn't exactly the height of his species' accomplishments.

He sighed, one of many that day, and scrubbed shampoo through his hair, dunking his head under the spray to rinse it clean. Inventory was tomorrow, he thought, as he lathered up a bar of soap to scrub at the rest of him. Inventory and maybe another chat with one of the professors to try and figure out more stimulating activities for Jasper.

Josh turned the water off, pushing aside the curtain and fluffing a towel through his damp hair quickly before using it to wrap around his waist. Steam from the shower obscured his mirror and made the tiled walls damp, and already he was too warm, so he opened the door and headed across the hallway to his room to get dressed.

He heard Jasper’s footsteps- talons clacking on wood and thumps on carpet- in the hall, having left the door ajar.

“What’re you trying to do, sneak up on me?” Josh asked, though Jasper couldn’t reply. It felt better to speak to a living thing other than himself, than to stay in silence with music or TV to keep full quiet at bay.

And in fact, Jasper didn’t answer. Josh dug around in a pile of clothes on his dresser for a clean shirt, separating out a pair of jeans as well, and tossing his towel onto the foot of his bed. He felt Jasper nudge against his back, and reached to pat him. “I know you want to go outside, but I don’t want to drag you back in.”

Jasper snuffled, dragging his nose across Josh’s back, breathing against his hip and then standing straight. He made a noise in his throat, something like curiosity probably, judging from the noises he’d made before, and pushed his nose against Josh’s back again, harder. Surprised, Josh stumbled, thunking one hand against his dresser to keep balance.

“Hey, watch it,” he said, bending to pick up his pants, which had fallen between the edge of the bed and the dresser. “You’re gonna make me whack my head.”

Jasper made another noise that sounded like a strange, humming purr. It was nasally, almost. Josh felt his forelimbs- not as terribly strong as Jasper’s ability to push with his snout, or kick, but still hefty and with the addition of claws- against his back. Soon after, Jasper’s weight leaned against him, and he felt the raptor’s nose against his neck and the surprising heat of his body radiating.

“Jasper, get off!” Josh tried, squirming, trying to avoid being raked by the claws settled on his back, or kick and upset Jasper’s feet into coming down on his legs. Unbalanced, he caught himself on the edge of the bed, and his knee slammed hard into the ground. “Oof, dammit-”

Shirt half-on and little else to protect him from Jasper’s rough hide and other pointy bits, Josh tried to shove with one arm, but the weight of the raptor was too much at that angle. He was pinned, Jasper’s legs surrounding his, the push of his arms not enough to get away.

A sear of panic settled in his gut, making his face flush and his stomach squeeze and drop. Maybe this was it, maybe Jasper had finally grown out of needing him around. Wanting him around. Maybe Jasper wanted a meal instead.

“Jasper-” Josh gasped, trying to push back, to scramble out from under him. “Jasper, no, wait-”

His back felt sticky-damp, like Jasper had drooled on him. Josh pushed harder, but with his breath coming fast and shallow, he quickly realized it wasn’t working. He felt Jasper’s breath on his neck, heard the low, crackling rumble in the raptor’s throat, right next to his ear. Sweat trickled down his forehead.

“Jasper-” he breathed again. What was he meant to do? There was no training for this, no off switch if Jasper ever turned. No warnings had come, and the professors assured him that Jasper would look to him like a parent or one of his own, having imprinted on Josh at the moment after hatching. But that didn’t matter when Jasper wouldn’t listen. He was heavier than Josh, more dangerous.

Josh felt Jasper’s legs adjust, claws tapping and hips pressed against his back. He felt the nose against the back of his head, and for a hazy moment, thought,  _ Ha, ha. Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit? _

_ Anywhere it wants. _

Josh was damp with sweat, and probably with drool. He felt Jasper’s legs shift again, subtly, and the raptor’s underbelly slide against his back.

And then a prod and a pressure as Jasper’s hips swayed, and something slick, hot and wide pushed against Josh’s ass. He bit his tongue, hanging onto the bunched up sheets beneath him, and winced at both the sting in his mouth and the stretch.

Jasper had mounted him, he realized, still tingling with adrenaline. His body shook, both from the fear soaking him and the pain of Jasper’s continued push against him. Only when his vision started to fuzz into darkness at the edges did Josh remember to breathe, and when he did, he sucked air in through gritted teeth. Jasper’s weight intensified, and Josh’s face shoved against the bed, his arms splayed and clinging, his legs forced apart by Jasper’s body.

The raptor crouched, the angle of his cock pushing in and up, and Josh reeled, spreading his legs further to try and mitigate the pain. “A-  _ ah _ \- shit, no, not… Jasper-...”

His eyes watered. Tears of pain, humiliation, whatever they were, he pinched his face around them, and felt the pressure intensify. Illogically, his mind jolted into wondering what it could possibly look like- what Jasper’s cock was like- as the head forced its way in. It felt… wrong, foremost, but Josh could barely think in a line anymore, and it had been seconds. Had it been seconds? It felt like ages.

It felt like Jasper would get stuck. Jasper being not much taller than him had no bearing on how big the  _ rest _ of him was, and the barest movement any way but inward felt like he’d been impaled and pulling away would let his guts simply fall out as well. Jasper’s foot moved, Josh thought, and another hiccup of pain lanced across his backside. “Don’t-”

Fuck. There was nothing he could do but  _ take _ it. He couldn’t call for help with his phone still sitting on the nightstand, though it may as well be behind plexiglas, and he was utterly alone.

His vision blurred, blackening around the edges, and Jasper moved again. Josh choked on his own breath, managing a pathetic squeak of a noise that exploded into a yelp. The stretch was unbearable, silencing him but for whimpers. Surely something had broken or torn open as Jasper shoved deeper into him. Something had to give. The satiated dinosaur would simply do his business and leave Josh to… to bleed out from far worse than a bite to the jugular.

Hah. Funny, how his mind clung to such weird logic.

It must have been an eternity. Hours, or the sun must have gone down. Jasper’s warm belly hung heavy against him, and Josh gasped into the pockmarked blankets, shaking. The adrenaline of fear had worn off, leaving him with waves and shocks of pain that stabbed at his lower back and ass, and even his logic-edged brain was too alight to come up with a comparison. It was a… a dinosaur. Josh could feel the smooth thigh scales against his ass, and when- amazingly- he was able to turn, saw angry bruises and a faint drip of blood down one leg, sticky and damp and having stained speckles on Jasper’s pubic boot-

Jasper was fully against him, and Josh hadn’t even realized.

Josh nearly passed out when Jasper pulled out and thrust back in, shoving both their hips against the edge of Josh’s bed. His skin felt like it was on fire, a prickling ache shooting up his spine as his body did its best to accommodate the infiltration. His brain, meanwhile, felt numb, too overwhelmed to even replay what had happened. It fuzzed like static, the edges of his vision searing white as he screamed.

Jasper thrust, and then thrust again. He kept Josh in place with his forelimbs, nose resting in Josh’s hair, right next to his ear so that Josh could hear his quick breaths, timed with each jab of his hips and Josh’s own pained noises, dribbling from his open mouth like drool.

He tried, at least, to push at Jasper again, but the raptor wasn’t having it. With every press of his hips he buried hilt-deep in Josh, his cock slicked with precum and probably blood. Fluid already dripped down Josh’s legs. It wasn’t long, either, until Jasper’s thrusting quickened, the rhythm changing from long strokes to staccato, only a few inches pulled free before ramming right back in.

Josh saw stars. His own cock was, despite the pain and his own desperate want to be  _ out _ of Jasper’s grasp, hard. The movement pushed him against the bed, which in turn massaged him against the bedsheets, and the attention to his ass wasn’t helping his body combat the physical pleasure despite the throbbing pain.

A few short thrusts later, Josh came, cock spurting a trail of cum on the floor and sheets, his throat husky from constant noise and body trembling with adrenaline and orgasm. Jasper, however, wasn’t done. He continued to ram into Josh, the punctuation of each one scraping more friction against him and quickly reducing him to nothing but a trembling, whimpering puddle of nerves.

And then Jasper came, his cock throbbing as his belly scales slapped Josh’s ass, the barest movements massaging his seed from him. It gurgled into Josh’s guts like a sprinkler jet, Josh well and truly plugged and leaving it nowhere to go but deeper into him. Jasper’s thighs tensed rhythmically, and Josh could imagine each throb like the tick of an IV, Jasper’s body doing nothing but squeezing his load free in measured, and yet sloppy deposits. He wondered, hazily, if the professors had planned on this. If they’d tried and failed to make Jasper sterile or deliberately created him to be active. He was… he was of age, mating. Or what he assumed was mating; reproduction and daily function was all an animal would think about.

It was hours, surely. Josh was numb, but a deep fire ached in him, Jasper’s tiny, jolting movements milking him for all he was worth and Josh a container for what seemed like quarts of the raptor’s cum. He groaned, feeling full and tight, like he’d eaten too much or needed the bathroom, but Jasper stayed well inside him even after the shuddering ceased.

Deliriously, Josh simply lay where he was, and then with a sudden shift, Jasper stood up straighter and backed away. Josh winced, biting back a yelp, and then the tip of Jasper’s slightly flared cock popped free, cum spurting after it and oozing between Josh’s legs and onto his thighs.

Jasper briefly and tentatively eased his nose closer to Josh’s ass. Josh felt a warm intake and exhalation, and the thick, broad slither of Jasper’s meaty tongue stroking between his legs. He did it once, for some reason Josh couldn’t comprehend. And then, seeming satisfied, he clomped right back out of Josh’s room with nothing more than the sound of his feet on the floor and left Josh to sink to his knees against his bed, pink-tinged cum still dripping onto the wood beneath him and his pants still wedged in the corner where they’d fallen.


	3. Chapter 3

Cleanup was a nightmare, and that was describing it lightly. Josh didn’t move for a good fifteen minutes. It was only as his legs started to prickle with actual, real numbness that he shifted his arms and got his knees under himself.

His body ached, pinching and throbbing with residual fire. He went as slowly and deliberately as he could, but he wasn't sure whether that was any better or worse than getting it over with. His head, stuffed full of nonsense thoughts and sluggish tiredness, felt foggy and sore. His knees were roughened red from dragging on the carpet, the whole of him heavy and remembering the weight of the raptor above him. Dampness dribbled down his legs when he turned, and he couldn't be bothered to check whether it was translucent white or angry, brilliant red.

There was nothing he wanted more than to just lay down and sleep, but he was sticky with damp and sweat, and he felt used. He didn't hear anything outside the room at all, thankfully, when he shuffled to the door, this time locking it tight despite realizing that the raptor could probably just as easily knock it down with his weight rather than leaving Josh alone.

He showered again. The water, even set to its hottest so that the steam immediately filled the room and made it hard to see, felt cold. It reminded him of how warm the body above him had been, and he shuddered. His skin turned blotchy red-white under the spray, hair hanging in his face as he lathered himself with soap. Slowly, the aches did fade, but only across his upper body and legs. His hips throbbed, his skin tender and his insides feeling twisted and mashed to a pulp. Josh did chance a touch, sliding his fingers against his ravaged backside to clean as best he could; it took time for him to figure out exactly how to clean once he’d relaxed. The heat of the shower helped with that somewhat, though what he managed to work free clumped and thickened in the warmth and perhaps caused more pain than it was worth. But he did it, and eventually the water started cooling until he stood shivering in the tub like nothing had ever happened, the evidence washed away.

He stayed in the bathroom too long as well, probably, drying himself off with careful precision until even his dark hair had become fluffy again and the steam had clung to the walls in a hazy vapor. Finally, though, he had to escape, and he did so just as slowly as he had gone in, slipping through the short hallway to his bedroom and locking the door. Dressing deliberately, he subconsciously listened for the thudding clacking of Jasper’s feet, but none came. He took the time, as he tugged his T-shirt over his head, to think, now that some semblance of quiet had suffused his rattled mind. What was he supposed to do? Report it, probably. If Jasper started attacking people like that, he couldn’t possibly be allowed in contact with anyone, not even his assigned handler. And beyond that?

Some seedling of a thought also dug its roots into his brain. What if they wanted him to fail? What if they had done specifically this, orchestrated all this just so that Josh would leave? They wouldn’t have, surely. It was too much effort, too long dealing with only him- even in isolation- to even consider, when research budgets, even on projects termed for seven years and counting, were so thread-thin and wavering.

He should deal with it face-to-face, he thought. But what would that accomplish other than his having to wait a week just to see one of the professors that came to check up on him? An anxiety-driven spiral into nothing good, that was what. Hell, even delaying it for any longer would surely make it even more of a pain to get up the gumption to call.

Josh sat on his bed tenderly, leaning for his phone on the nightstand, and scrolled through his contacts until he came upon Dr Norell. The phone rang once… twice… Josh nearly hung up after the third ring, but before a voicemail could respond, he heard the click of a connecting line.

“Hello?”

“Uh… Hi Professor Norell. I know we’re meant to talk soon but, uh.” He hesitated, wishing cell phones had cords so he could wind his fingers tight into the loops. “Something happened.”

“To the specimen?” came the immediate response.

“I, uh. No. No, not to- not to it, but… I think we might want to consider some other type of arrangement or something? Like… I don’t know how well another dakotaraptor would go, but-”

“There are no other dakotaraptors,” the professor said.

“Well… no, not yet, right? What I mean is, couldn’t we just-”

“We’re not engineering another specimen.”

The response was flat and surely unwilling to consider anything else. It made Josh fall silent for longer than he would normally have.

“Then…” he started, trying to come up with any sort of question. “How- I thought this experiment was meant to- to propagate the species. Wouldn’t you need a breeding pair to…?”

The other end of the line was silent. Josh pulled the phone away from his ear briefly- the screen lit up and showed the call timer ticking up. He returned the phone to his ear, and only after a few moments did he hear a quick shuffle that indicated the professor was even still there.

“Look. Joshua. We’re paying you, right?”

Josh hesitated. “I… yeah?”

“When you took this position, you signed a contract. You read it in full.”

An ominous pause. Josh waited for more, but there was nothing.

“...Yeah.”

“So we have you under contract, we’re paying you, we’re providing you food, board, entertainment, whatever you need. And in return, as stated in the contract, you must provide the specimen the same. Whatever it needs.”

Another long pause. Josh said nothing, his mind throbbing like his backside.

“Do you understand?”

He opened his mouth to try and argue. When they said ‘anything’, he thought they meant care, like an animal. Food, water, play, stim- His brain cut out, and he shook his head.

“That’s not what-”

“That’s exactly what the contract says. You have a copy. We have a copy. Multiple copies.” The voice over the phone sounded gleefully ravenous. Like a predator. Josh felt himself shiver.

“But-”

“I can take your argument to the owner, and to the Dean. I’m sure that if they hear what you’re talking about, they’ll understand the position.”

Josh brightened briefly, but the professor continued.

“You would have to be removed from the program, of course, and the nondisclosure agreement would remain in place. And with your knowledge of the situation, we could of course not have you hired into any other positions, or at any other companies. With private shareholders in attendance of the board, we would of course have to call for a blacklist. Your credentials would remain intact but I can assure you that finding a job in your field would be… quite impossible. Such a shame.”

Josh had stopped listening at ‘blacklist.’ He sat on his bed, a horrible, openmouthed statue, the phone gripped in his hand hard enough that his knuckles had turned white, the rest of his hand angry, blotchy red.

He wanted to scream. He wanted the professor to hear the same noise he'd made when he’d been torn open and bled onto the carpet. He wanted to threaten and demand, and push at every boundary he was capable of pushing at. But what boundaries did he have?

Killing? The dinosaur would slit his stomach before he had a chance to take a knife to its thickly leathered throat. Quitting? He'd lose everything, the professor had already outlined that in crystal clear words. He couldn't just disappear, either. There were cameras everywhere, staring at him. With cold dread, he realized there was even one in the bedroom. There was one pointed at the spot where he’d been pushed down and the raptor had breathed hot and heavy into his ear.

Feeling sick, he swallowed hard, then swallowed again. His neck felt damp and sweaty, his scalp itching and his body slowly relearning its aches. Nauseous, but empty-stomached, he didn’t retch; he stopped himself from laying down on the bed.

"But..." he mumbled. "Professor, you don't understand."

"Oh really? What don't I understand, Joshua?"

"It raped me."

The line was silent for a moment again, Josh's breath thick in his lungs. The professor was considering it? He could-

"I do understand," Dr Norell said. There was nothing in his tone that sounded sympathetic. He sounded  _ bored _ , like he was reading a script. "Jasper, an animal- Sentient, not sapient- coerced sex from you. You provided it to him, and you would like a ruling on his behavior. So here is the ruling: either you leave, and are blacklisted- not to mention pursuing punitive damages for time spent, as well as costs related to your tenure here- or you deal with whatever that specimen did to you and provide it, as stated in clear writing on your contract, everything it needs.

"Now I suggest you get back to your job, Mr DePalma. You wouldn't want the specimen to go hungry, would you?"

Josh didn't have to hang up. Professor Norell did it for him, the line going shockingly still and the phone eventually beeping in his ear as he received an email reminder for his weekly grocery list.

He stared at the black screen, swallowing down sickness again. His body felt like it wouldn't move. It felt heavy and wretched, and too hot while being ice-cold. The phone dropped from his hand, and as his body was already leaning forward, he simply continued on that path. His jellied knees didn't hold him up; he slid down to the floor and settled against the side of the bed, then slipped down onto his side. The floor, even carpeted, dug into his hip and shoulder, his back complaining at the awkward angle. More than that, his face burned. His vision blurred with tears, angry and frustrated and sad, and before long he broke into a sob that pushed the air from him, turning him onto his belly. The floor became damp quickly, spit and tears and mucus pooling under his face.

His shoulders shook. He did move his arms at least, digging his fingers into his scalp and creating half-moon indentations with his grubby nails as he screamed into the carpet.

  
  


Josh did eventually get up. He couldn’t do anything but get up, after all, seeing as the grocery list had run thin and there wasn’t anything in the bedroom he could subsist on anyway. Aside from that, everything was up in the air. He didn’t know how long it would be before Jasper came looking for him again, or if he even would. And if he did, Josh knew he couldn’t fight back. At least, not in any meaningful way.

He hadn’t quite resigned himself to anything, but his world, small and cloistered already, was closing in around him. Dr Norell was no help, and going by his reaction, none of the other members of the advising team would be either. He could try when Dr Varricchio stopped by to do a physical with Jasper but he could hear the chuckling in his head if he asked about Jasper’s sexual maturity. Clark’s short, barking laugh rang in his ears. Hell, he’d had to  _ call _ for them to even bother speaking to him about it, and there were cameras mounted everywhere. Surely they would have notified when they saw him and- when they saw what happened after… They’d seen when Jasper had tried to jump the fence, and when he’d tried to get up on the counter and knocked glass all over the floor. Those were emergencies compared to what had just happened.

So. Josh was alone, and yet not alone enough.

He paced within the room, still trying to avoid opening the door. Still rolling over and over in his own mind to the point that he began to breathe heavier, his hands twitching from his sides together and twisting before falling back again and making fists, then twisting again. He played his nails over each other, suddenly very aware of the texture of them, of the way they sounded and the dull sensation of possible pain if something were to dig into his nail bed. He imagined a set of screws, slowly twisting through the tops of his thumbs.

He sat at his desk. A brief shock of pain took his brain from its torturous grind, and he opened his laptop. Clicked on his browser. Typed ‘dopamine inhibitor’ into the search bar.

Leaning with chin on hand, too casually it felt like, he clicked through a few sites. He couldn’t recognize most of the drug names right off the bat, his schooling not in pharmacology but in theoretical science and biology. He’d have to look up most of the effects on their own, and that would take ages. He opened a few more tabs and scanned through three pages of jargon, then went back and added ‘+comparison’. Two links later and with nervously bouncing knees, he found a chart containing descriptions, common effects and drug names.

Anticholinergic effects, yes. Hypotension he could live with, if it happened. Weight gain and EPSE? What did that matter? Sedation was what he was looking for, but he didn’t want a mild sleep aid and he didn’t want anything resembling roofies. That was harder to control when he had to anticipate Jasper and the drug wouldn’t kick in for at least half an hour or more. Who knew what could happen if he fell asleep at the wrong time, or couldn’t fall asleep while under the influence?

He did consider, for the briefest moment, alcohol. But he’d never been a fan of the taste, and there was little benefit, with how expensive it could be, let alone for the immediate after-effects. He was a lightweight, for sure, but that didn’t mean a bottle of whiskey would last him. Besides, he could get a generic version of clozapine shipped, practically like his groceries. No one had ever brought up anything he’d bought- not that anything he’d bought had been particularly suspicious, but buying things online it wasn’t like he needed a prescription. It would be fine, and if it got confiscated he could simply lower his expectations. There were a lot of drugs to choose from.

Josh placed an order for groceries first, the tab for the charts looming over his cart of meats and bread, eggs and another gallon of milk for the cereal he still hadn’t eaten. He was almost out of vitamins, too, and shopping took his mind off of everything; he defiantly added a tiny pan meant for cooking a singular egg to the cart, then included a few cheap Hostess snacks. Satisfied, he nearly hit submit before pausing and returning to the main screen to search up another couple items: a thirty-two-ounce bottle of lube, and a handle of whiskey. After all, it couldn’t hurt. Another pause. He searched for an enema bag and quickly selected the first that popped up before submitting his order and closing the tab. The drug effects stared back at him ominously. His mind buzzed with every overthought possibility. What if his mostly stable mindset turned the pills against him? What if he did something stupid and took them with alcohol? What if he took them and Jasper went too wild? What help did he have at that point?

The chair shook with how his legs bounced. In a quick motion, he stabbed at control+W. The window closed, and he slammed his laptop shut a bit too hard, leaving the thought of the pills behind.

***

The next five days dragged by in a painful haze of avoiding Jasper as much as he could. Of course, he still had to let him outside, still with the harness on, but made sure he was clothed to do so. Part of what hurt the most was that Jasper, animal as he was, couldn’t understand regret or Josh’s quiet when around him. Josh left Jasper’s documentaries on the television constantly, an easy distraction alongside the rubber dog toys and ropes that made up his enrichment, but occasionally, Jasper seemed to simply want to stay alongside Josh. Maybe because he viewed him as a parent like a baby duck would, maybe because of his scent, or because of The Incident, as Josh could only help to call it. To Josh, it didn’t matter what Jasper thought, and he tried to ignore the raptor’s confused rumbles when he locked himself in his room. Morning scratching at the door still happened, and Jasper even tried to clamber up on the couch to lay as much of his upper body on Josh as he could, though Josh squirmed his way out of it more than once, which led to Jasper seeming almost to pout and avoid him in turn.

Josh never reopened that tab on his computer; the groceries came, along with the alcohol and lubricant, one of which Josh stashed away in the kitchen while the other sat ominously on his dresser in the bedroom. Days later, and he still hurt; his legs and sides had bruised slightly, not to mention the ache across his lower back and ass. He’d forgone sitting anywhere but the couch or the bed recently, and even then he preferred laying down, but the pain had dropped the last little while and his doses of ibuprofen stayed at two or three at most.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more he could do for himself. It took those several days for him to accept it- without outside help, none of which he could trust, and none of which he  _ had _ , he was bound to whatever fate Jasper decided for him. And the fate was an easy one to see: Jasper was a healthy, mature male, and had been created, as far as Josh could tell, to fulfill his basic needs however he saw fit, training or not.

Part of what bugged him about it the most was the fact that the professor had stated no further specimens would be engineered. It irritated his mind on a base level, as a scientist himself. Why, when creating something, would it not be given a secondary, especially considering that it was clearly outlined that he was neither a sequential or simultaneous hermaphrodite? All research that was good research demanded a time sink, and while Josh could only assume a general life span of roughly fifteen years, more based on Jasper’s overall physiology than any comparable research he could do on fossilized holotypes, that was not long in the grand scheme of things. What happened when Jasper eventually died? What culmination was their research leading to? Not even the report and papers they’d given Josh gave definitive answers, so all he was left with was a tumbling mess of conflicting thoughts on the end.

Was he simply a proof of concept? Nothing but a prototype? But then why wouldn’t they be creating more raptors if they could? He’d already given them enough information to make improvements or at the very least begin the process of a new format. And if the entire thing was a dead end, why were they continuing funding? What could they accomplish outside of seeing a death to both the project and the specimen?

These thoughts occupied him, but not as much as the looming form of the lubricant bottle. Jasper had already overpowered him once. It wasn’t unlikely that it could happen again, and would, with the endorsement of the professor. As much as Josh hated the idea, as much as his body railed against him for it- the pain was a factor, but further down was the insistence that his body had accepted what his mind would not, and had reacted to whatever small pleasure Jasper had given him. Josh was straight. He’d never experimented outside of women, not even with himself; the thought of it simply never occurred to him- why try something he knew he’d be unhappy with? And as something in him asked a whiny question of  _ ‘are you unhappy with it?’  _ he quashed it, but the feeling of determination lingered.

He was no boy scout, but he much preferred that version of  _ Be Prepared _ to, say, the Lion King’s.

Jasper hadn’t tried anything after the initial incident, but he stuck close to Josh as if he  _ would _ try something, even going so far as to nudge Josh more frequently and stand too close, so that Josh could still feel the warmth of him, and if he moved a certain way, the pebbly skin. So he settled, that day, on making sure whatever was happening was on his terms, as much as it could be. Jasper’s harness cord was long; it attached to the poles outside, but Josh kept it shorter, as the yard wasn’t large enough to need the whole length lest the raptor decide to jump and get stuck outside the enormous fence. He took and measured that length, extending it so that Jasper could stand several feet inside the door and for a moment even thought about blacking out some of the cameras, but decided against it. If they wanted to see him, they’d see him and he’d put a middle finger up to them if they said anything about it.

Temporarily, he had Jasper stand in harness, in the house. He knew the wire rope was strong enough to hold him back, and so the next thing Josh needed was comfort of his own. To that end, he arranged one of the chairs from the living room. It took a fair bit of muscle and heavy breathing to shift into position, being a recliner that Josh had requested, but he figured it would do better than a flimsy wooden kitchen chair.

Satisfied, he left Jasper to wander and steeled himself for his final task. Still, the bottle loomed. He sat on his bed and looked at it, then got up and paced. The pacing took him to the kitchen and the handle of whiskey he’d ordered but not touched, and he’d poured himself a glass before deciding that making himself as pliable as he thought he needed to be wasn’t a particularly good idea given the claws on the other end of the equation. Sighing, he downed the single shot he’d poured, then corked the bottle and put it away before returning to his room and taking up the lubricant instead.

It was fine. He was fine. People- lots of people, not just gay guys- screwed around with this kind of thing. And lube was meant for everyone. His ex liked to use the warming peppermint stuff for some reason, even though he thought it burned like hell. He just needed to… clean. Or something.

Mind wandering, he took the bottle to the bathroom, and before he could change his mind, undid his belt and dropped his pants, kicking his bunched up clothes into one corner. And really, that didn’t bode well for the rest of the process. He wrapped a towel around himself once he’d used up a rather large wad of toilet paper and hurried back to the kitchen for some paper towels to dampen. After the fourth one, he finally stopped, admitting to himself he was just dodging for time, and threw the whole of it into the garbage. The last thing in his mind was the enema he’d bought- he’d intended it for cleanup afterward, but his tendency toward research had gotten the better of him, leading him to discover its use suited before rather than after.

He sucked it up, finished the process with a grimace before taking up the lubricant. For a moment he forgot about the seal underneath, then unscrewed the cap on the bottle and peeled off the seal, and put the cap back on.

The lube was cold in his palm. Somehow he wasn’t expecting that, and it made him fidget a little with shaking knees, his head ducked so he wouldn’t have to look at himself in the mirror as he held his hand open, the clear gel slowly spreading. He breathed out and whispered a string of ‘fuck, fuck, fuck,’ to himself, then reached back and swiped his fingers between his ass cheeks, leaving a trail of lube. There was still a lot on his hand when he looked at it, and he knew he had to be more careful; he groaned to himself as he lowered his head to the cool counter. “God. This is stupid. All of this is shit. Fuck.”

He stood there, bent against the counter, for several long moments before he sighed and leaned upward. Adjusting slightly, he reached behind himself, one leg twisted to give him a better angle. His slick fingers probed between his ass cheeks with surprising ease, and as he touched his anus, he hesitated. “Fuck,” he said again, and slowly eased a finger inside.

It didn’t hurt like Jasper’s cock had. It was a smooth pressure despite his muscles wanting to reject it, and quite honestly, he managed the whole of his index finger with little more than an embarrassed wince.

“I don’t get gay guys,” he mumbled to himself as he removed his hand, grateful that it came back clean except for the lube. “What the hell.”

But he soldiered on, liberally adding another ooze of lube to his palm and flattening it against his ass. This time the finger went in easier, taking a dose of lube with; it squelched, and Josh made a face. He just needed to… anticipate. He’d never actually had a close look at Jasper’s cock, but it had felt huge, and while he didn’t think he could ever actually fully prepare for it, he wanted to be as ready as he could. He wanted to get the fucking thing over with.

He massaged himself, turning his finger around and curling it. The pain of the original incident had gone completely now, save the emotional stab. Josh concentrated on the way his muscles moved- he could control them somewhat, tensing around his finger and relaxing, pushing with his abdomen and feeling the pull as the muscles contracted again. It was easier to move his finger when he pushed, and he mentally noted that as he once again removed his hand and graced it with more lube.

Maybe if he got hold of a syringe or something- something with a rubber tip on it- he could transfer the substance more easily. As it was, it seemed okay, using his finger to push as much inside himself as he could, but if he could just deposit it there from the beginning… He glanced at the trash again, then reached in, taking out the empty enema bottle and unscrewing the lid. Without much thought, he tipped the lube bottle over and filled it all the way back up.

The lube went in as well as the other liquid had. There was some residue at the bottom, but Josh couldn’t manage to squeeze the bottle enough to get it all in. And when he took it out, he had to clench against it, straightening up until the feeling passed and he once again slid a tentative finger against his hole. It slipped inside like nothing now, lube oozing around it and dripping over his hand and onto the floor. What a waste.

Josh had to pause again after that thought, laughing feebly to himself. “What the fuck?” he asked no one, finger up his ass and head bent against the counter once more. He was a mess. Physically and mentally, he was nuts. But there was little to do for it now. He had to keep going. A second finger put more pressure on him, and allowed more lube to squelch free, but he forced himself to take them fully, the stretch nothing compared to the insistent and painful memory of Jasper’s unyielding girth.

He tried to ignore that he was already half-hard at the touch, eyes squeezed shut and lube coating his whole palm. It wasn’t until the pressure had eased significantly that he righted himself, shaking slightly, and reached for a couple more paper towels to clean his hand as best he could. He took the partially empty lube bottle with him, uncaring for the moment of the cameras that watched him walk bottomless through the house and to the door.

“Jasper!” he called, then hurriedly backed up behind the recliner. Answering his call, Jasper strolled in, shaking himself and making the harness rattle.

“Hey buddy,” Josh said. Jasper looked back at him with those strangely intelligent eyes. “Did you wear yourself down a little outside? You, uh…”

Tentatively, watching Jasper, Josh clambered over one arm of the recliner. The lube on his ass stained the fabric, but he didn’t care- it was pockmarked with claw holes and stained with drinks and food from the last two years anyway. Jasper watched him, a rumbling in his throat as if he was questioning Josh’s strangeness and the chair’s new, awkward location. He shifted from foot to foot, the metal rope barely swaying with the movement.

“We’re gonna see what you can do, alright?” Josh continued. “Er. What  _ I _ can do. God, fuck,” he interrupted himself, covering his face with a shaky hand. “Please. Just… don’t go nuts, alright? I hate that I want this to work so bad. I mean, I don’t want it to work. But I do. Shit, I’m not making any sense.”

By this point, Jasper had leaned forward as much as he could. He was in range of Josh, just enough to snuffle at his legs, snorting with the new, manufactured smell of lube. But something else seemed to have caught up with him as well; Josh got a quick glimpse as Jasper shifted, noticing a spot of brighter pinkish flesh among all the brown and green. Jasper rumbled, and Josh swallowed hard.

“Okay. Right, okay, um. You… you wanna try something new, right?” Josh fumbled to his knees, still facing Jasper as the raptor watched him, an intent look in his eye. His head bobbed slowly, and he shifted again, pulling gently against his harness. It held him back, and Josh felt a wave of relief, thin over the mound of anxiety that had built and stayed in his stomach.

He opened the bottle of lube one more time, his body screaming at him to get up and go. He forced the feeling down and stomped on it while he reached behind himself with another squeeze of lube, that hand so slick he had trouble closing the bottle and letting it drop.

“Okay,” he repeated. “Okay so… I’m gonna turn around, and I want- I want you to be gentle, okay? Jasper?”

He didn’t look at Jasper’s body. He just stared into those sharp eyes, and turned with one glossy hand held between his ass and Jasper. Keeping his shallow breathing in check as much as he could, Josh braced himself with his clean hand against the back of the chair, knees propped on its cushion. He bent, pressing his head beneath his handhold, and presented his bare ass to the raptor that was eyeing him, the swelling cock between his legs enough indication of what would happen next.

His mind screamed at him, his body shaking in breath and limbs. Everything seemed magnified into a buzz- everything except Jasper’s feet thudding on the carpet, his stance adjusting. Josh felt hot breath on his back and then again on his ass; Jasper stepped again, the harness jangling as he made a low noise in his throat.

Another breath. This time, Josh felt a lick. Jasper slid his tongue through the lube, testing it; Josh had gotten a generic type, nothing flavored, but safe to eat just in case, since he couldn’t well just leave something out and expect Jasper not to try and figure out what it was.

Josh shuddered, leaning back a little. This was fine. Everything was fine. He was doing this because he wanted to. That he also  _ had _ to crossed his mind, but it was either this or nothing. Jasper didn’t seem to mind. His feet shifted again, and Josh felt warmth on his back, Jasper’s soft underbelly pressing against him. Josh leaned forward out of desperate instinct; Jasper hooked his nose over Josh’s shoulder, but in that moment Josh knew that he could get away if he wanted. Jasper couldn’t pin him down, not with the harness strapped around him.

Breathe. Breathe. It’s fine. Josh reached behind him, knuckles brushing Jasper’s belly, and found the crest of his leg. He slipped his hand further, leaving a trail of fluid along the pebbly skin, and his hand touched something almost pulsing with heat. Jasper growled low in his throat, and Josh stilled, but nothing happened. “Hold still,” he said. “Stay. Stay. Good boy.”

Josh could feel Jasper’s weight moving just slightly, but he stayed where he was as Josh made himself settle back, keeping his hand on Jasper’s ready cock. He slid his hand down the length, trying to transfer as much lube as he could, turning his hand to rub it from the back of his hand and between his fingers. The tip pressed against his cheek, and Jasper rumbled again, but the metal rope held taut. “I know,” Josh mumbled, trying to take his mind off how much he was focusing while also trying not to lose focus. It was a difficult balance, especially when he finally felt the head of Jasper’s cock against his hole. Okay. Okay. He just had to relax. Push slightly, don’t tense, don’t make it any more difficult than it needed to be. His breathing was making the material of the chair hot and damp, his face red and his body far from cool. Jasper made a throaty noise as Josh eased back, tip pressing against his rim. Josh couldn’t help but clench, then shifted and tried to relax. Jasper’s hips jumped, and the tip of his cock slipped, shaft rubbing along Josh’s cheek as he tried to thrust against what wasn’t there.

“Hang on!” Josh put a hand against him, but Jasper stomped a few times, hips jerking like a dog’s, and snorted. “I know, just- calm the fuck down, okay, you think this is easy for me? Just stop!”

Jasper’s cock bounced as he moved, and Josh twisted to touch it again, readying himself at a slightly closer distance. For a moment, he considered whether he should let Jasper continue, or stop and give him a sloppy hand job and be done with it. Part of him rebelled at that, some inner demon griping about what might happen if the professors found out, but a hand job was just as good as anything else- it wasn’t as if it mattered. But then Jasper’s hips jumped forward, his cock sliding against Josh’s hand. The tip caught Josh’s rim, and now lined up properly and with the leeway Josh had given, prodded beyond the ring of muscle until the head was engulfed.

“Ah, fuck!” The lube made it a little easier, but not by much. Josh’s balance pushed forward, and Jasper almost popped free again. It was only Josh having been further back to begin with that changed anything, the head of Jasper’s cock lodged in him and stretching him wide around it. Jasper, in turn, tried to stretch himself over Josh, nosing at him to pull him back against his cock.

Josh got his elbows underneath himself, sitting up enough to press under Jasper’s belly, feeling heat and huffs of breath and the motion against his ass. For a moment, he feared Jasper would move too much and pull free again; he inclined, and Jasper thrust, the raptor’s cock making a lewd squelching noise as it buried itself further. Josh couldn’t help but moan, caught in the confusion of pleasure and pain, his own cock hard and bouncing along.

The harness didn’t allow Jasper any closer, and really, Josh didn’t think he could handle it anyhow. Even a quarter, maybe half of Jasper was enough to feel like too much, and each little bit of texture, each vein or rib along it pulled at him despite the lube, though the preparation helped immensely. Or perhaps the lube simply showed fewer sins. Whatever it was, was enough to make him achingly hard, nothing against his cock to draw his seed from him, and Josh couldn’t think to touch himself either. Instead he focused on Jasper and pushed the barest bit back against him, allowing the rutting to spread him wide. Jasper huffed against his neck and back, adjusting his footing, harness jingling and claws braced against the chair fabric. It felt mindless, each thrust at least less damaging to his knees on the soft chair, and whether minutes or an hour passed, Josh didn’t know. It felt, somehow, shorter than The Incident. Maybe because he’d prepared, maybe because the sensation was too much for his brain to keep track of, save that perhaps each thrust was a few seconds, and Jasper thrust and thrust and thrust, driving his face into the chair and making his cock sway as he did.

Something in him tensed and Josh may not have noticed save for the gush of fluid. Jasper strained against the harness, heaving as far into Josh as he could- not much further than any thrusting had gotten him- and came. Josh felt the throb of him, the way his cock flexed and pressed, and the heat of the cum that radiated through him. It felt like he’d taken an enema yet again, his guts gurgling with the sudden influx. Josh’s cock spurted- instinctively, his muscles flexed and contracted around Jasper in orgasm, drawing his seed deep, every throb depositing more of the heavy load within. Josh strained around it, groaning, his breathing diminished to whiny pants against the cushion.

“God- just… stop already, J- Jasper…” He felt like his muscles were going to cramp, like Jasper was trying to fill him to overflowing. Already there was a low ache in his belly, bloated and heavy, and still Jasper plugged him.

Josh’s body felt like it was groaning under the weight, under the pressure. He shuddered, and then finally, Jasper bent against him with a whuff. Seeming satisfied, he shifted his foot back, and that was all the warning Josh had before Jasper pulled free with a squelch and a pop. Josh immediately bolted up, squeezing his legs together as he knelt on the chair. As much of a mess as he’d made already, he didn’t want to make  _ more _ , but he could already feel the massive amount of cum inside him pushing to get out. Some of it oozed between his cheeks, lazily dripping down one thigh.

Getting out of the chair was hellishly awkward, trying to hold the massive amount of cum with a clench that barely worked. When he finally managed to stand, his legs were shaking, and the chair’s arms and cushions were covered in damp splotches of clear off-white. It dribbled down his legs when he moved, and even trying to plug it with a finger didn’t help, not when he’d been stretched so thoroughly around Jasper. Josh was stuck simply trying to keep everything from getting  _ everywhere _ , and managed to a degree that the floor remained untarnished, but the shower took ages.

***

It wasn't so much that he liked it. He didn't. And he told himself as much when, about a week later, he arranged the chair again. He was taking control of the situation, keeping it out of Jasper's claws. Being able to dictate how and when the damn raptor went for him made a hell of a difference. Josh could learn to live with it, he supposed- not that he had much choice in the matter anyway. It was either choose to get railed when he felt like it or get railed at the whims of Jasper, and as he called to the raptor, he agreed with himself that the former was best.

Getting used to it, he thought, as he felt Jasper mount him and vaguely prod around with sways of his hips, shouldn't be bad. He kept that as a mantra as he reached back to guide Jasper in, and repeated it silently to himself as he pressed his face against the fabric, Jasper rutting against him and ushering soft gasps from Josh's mouth.

He relaxed. Focused. It didn't hurt as badly if he did. And it was easier to prepare for the inevitable tensing and heat that came with Jasper's orgasm, but Josh still hadn't fully readied himself for the sheer volume that came afterward. It throbbed through him in a wave, feeling as if it settled inside him, seeking out every twist and turn within.

Two weeks. Three. By the fourth, Josh felt little pain. The initial resistance, while expected, wasn't usually easy. It quickly faded as he dipped his head and pushed his hips back against Jasper to let him sink in. In fact, by that point it almost felt normal, like it had become routine. Essentially, he reminded himself as Jasper's feet repositioned, it had. Josh groaned as Jasper tried to lean forward, held back by his harness, and without thinking for once, Josh spread his knees wider and sank back, Jasper still not fully penetrating him, but easing in another few inches before the thrust bottomed out- held by the harness- and Josh shuddered. He orgasmed right there, a spurt of cum against the seat paling in comparison to Jasper's as it was fucked into him, his midriff slowly pushing out into a familiar roundness as the raptor unloaded into him. That he’d at least gotten used to- he’d never been in the best of shape with his original cheap food diet, and a little pooch just looked like fat compared to anything else. If he wasn’t being filled by a raptor, he’d have thought he’d gone back to eating nothing but ramen.

After week nine, Josh had shifted position. Jasper remained harnessed, the well-abused chair still set before him. Josh lay on his back, legs hooked over Jasper's wide hips, hands clinging to the well worn fabric above his head. The raptor bucked against him, soft underbelly making a muted slap with each movement. Josh came once before Jasper even finished, and then, with a low murmur of Jasper's name- almost an oath- came again as he felt the pulse of raptor cum inside him. He rocked himself against Jasper, milking him with the clenching of his muscles and bottoming out against him as he started to swell with the fresh load. Shaking, Josh slackened, allowing Jasper to pull free; a spurt of cum escaping before but Josh clenched around it as Jasper performed his post-coital inspection. He’d gotten more clingy recently, which meant Josh had to stay in the chair, weighed down by him and shivering with effort in keeping the mess from oozing out. He managed to stretch, reaching down to one side and retrieving the plug he’d bought with his last grocery shop while more cum dribbled from between his legs. It slid into his well-fucked hole easily, and he was glad of it; the hour he’d had to spend one day cleaning up the carpet and the chair when he’d been too overzealous was one day too many. It was uncomfortable, of course, stuffed full to the point that his guts protested in a low rumble, but it was easier than having to clean up, especially with a raptor draped over him.

Josh greeted week eleven with a cum-rounded belly and a sweaty, gasping luminance about him. He lay on the couch with his plug freshly inserted, one arm slung across the firm bulge, lube dampening his legs and the cushions beneath. Jasper was unharnessed and stood stooped, licking up a small puddle of fluid that had leaked as he pulled out and nuzzling between Josh’s legs warmly. Josh chuckled, squeezing his thighs together to stop Jasper from licking a hole in the cushions and he straightened indignantly. "Oh, don't make that face at me. Good boy, Jasper. Here. Time for National Geographic."

Week seventeen started normally. Or Josh wished it had. Looking back, he should have noticed sooner. Or maybe even if he'd been looking, he wouldn't have noticed. Whenever they had sex… That was- no, that was what it was. Sex. As much as Josh had refused it initially, he admitted that somewhere along the line, he'd begun to search Jasper out. To prepare himself in anticipation and not in fear. It had long stopped hurting, and in fact had Josh in orgasm more often than not, even without touching himself.

He- he may have touched himself anyway. He may have lain in bed and slid his hand over his half-hard cock and mumbled Jasper's name as he jacked off. Might gotten used to housing Jasper's hot cum and splaying his hand over the potbelly it gave him as he thought about the way it felt, and brought himself to shaking orgasm. He could have dropped his pants around his knees and slid lubed fingers into his ass- two, then three, bucking against them, only to call for Jasper and arch into him, pushed fully onto his waiting cock and filled once again with his throbbing load. Jasper had been off-harness for weeks at that point, Josh having moved from the chair to the couch, occasionally bent over the table if Jasper was being rowdy, but more frequently in the bed since it was nearly the perfect height for him to spread his knees, head buried against the blankets as Jasper rammed into him and lube dripped down his thighs.

Sometimes he even missed the feeling of such warmth in his belly. Sometimes he left the plug in for perhaps too long- if Jasper fucked him in the morning, he’d clean up, sure, but the plug he could keep in until bed without ill effect. In fact, having the plug in made it easier when Jasper’s cravings- nay, even Josh’s- struck. In fact, they’d had sex that morning and Josh had wandered around with his sweatpants taut over his full belly. And then after Josh had started to get ready for bed, he had returned from the bathroom to Jasper standing in the hall with his cock fully on display. That time, Josh didn’t sleep with the plug in, but he really  _ did _ think about it. 

In fact… maybe he  _ wanted _ it. Maybe that was why he didn't see the difference immediately. That was why his rounded belly hadn't been an oddity: near-constantly pumped full of cum, there was no reason for him to have noticed like he should have. Like he  _ would _ have, if he'd been keeping better notes or better measurements, or had paid attention instead of amusing himself with waddling around with a plug in him. Hell, in a bout of scientific curiosity, he’d even taken the plug out once and measured it, filling an empty milk jug to the point of overflow and yet not having bothered to note it out of some bone-deep spite or uncaring anger. He would have noticed how much more he had started eating and how the orders for groceries had slowly changed to include a wider range of meats for Jasper that Josh surreptitiously took cuts of for himself, both of them sharing a steak dinner of which the only difference was doneness. How he felt tired, excusing it with his suddenly more amorously active lifestyle, despite the years trying to keep up with a growing raptor. How-

How could he have not noticed? Not seen, until sitting at his computer and sparing a glance down at his feet as he fished for his lost slipper one evening.

His shirt stretched taut over an equally firm belly, not a small pooch but a roundness that didn't disappear when he stood. In dumbstruck awe, he raised his hands to cup around it, suddenly struck with the idea that it must not be fat like he thought, not the remains of his most recent session with Jasper despite having taken the plug out, not when he couldn't pinch it between his fingers in rolls but could only splay his fingers across it like he was holding a shallow bowl against himself. Bloated, perhaps. Or fuck, maybe Jasper was secretly radioactive and he had cancer. They’d probably be able to cut it out if that was the case. Still...

"...Professor?" he mumbled to himself. The last call they'd had didn't go well, and he'd not taken the time to follow up. Even when another of the team visited the elephant in the room remained unnamed. But the implication was obvious:  _ Josh is letting the raptor fuck him _ . Surely it was no secret, despite his not talking about it, though that didn't give him any more confidence in their answer if he  _ did _ bring it up.

He played with the idea up until dinner- a medium-well burger alongside Jasper's bone-in pork haunch. And then he cleared his plate and called, Jasper's bone crunching in the background.

"Uh…" he said, after Professor Norell's bland greeting. "Hi. I… I'm not really sure what to say except the, uh. I think I need an exam or something. I'm not sick, I don't think, I just. Something's different. I just want to make sure it's nothing bad. I have some abdominal tightness, and palpating didn’t give me any clues other than it’s not fat- it’s firm and… I’m worried Jasper’s radioactive or something, or that maybe I got bad food, or…

The conversation was surprisingly short. Norell immediately jumped to asking about his diet and then agreeing with him, promising to send a physician alongside Josh's usual visitor in the next two days, and didn't bother to assuage Josh's fear more than to assure him that whatever was happening would be taken care of.

“You’re sure?” Josh asked. He still didn’t fully trust the professor, but there wasn’t much else he could do. He had to rely on them or simply let whatever this was run its course, and he didn’t want the latter. Jasper heard his voice and came looking, bumping his head around the door and padding in. He tilted his head at the phone, chirping, then sat back in that silly way with his tail out in the hall.

“Absolutely. We’ll make sure you’re fine. That’s part of our contract after all.”

The mention of the contract put a bitter taste in Josh’s mouth. He bit his cheek hard, then let it go. “...Okay. I’ll expect a visit from Professor Clark and Dr. Larson on, uh. Friday.”

“Good. Like I said, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Dr. Larson is very good.”

“If you say so.” Josh hung up after that, but really… he didn’t feel better at all.


End file.
